Avoid The 'Bonk': Running A Marathon Scientifically (NPR)

About 200,000 Americans will run marathons this year, and by some estimates about 4 out of 10 of them will bonk.

That's runner-speak for "hitting the wall," which is what happens when a long-distance runner runs out of gas, metabolically speaking.


Hitting The Wall


Ben Rapoport hit the wall while running the New York City Marathon five years ago. Here's how he describes it:


"Somewhere in the Bronx, I started to feel like I couldn't keep up the pace," he says. "It was awful. I couldn't make my legs run any faster. And when I tried, it was very painful."

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